This article is missing information about the program's early years which is found in Art Bell's article, but not this article. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page.(February 2015)

Created and originally hosted by Art Bell, the program is now hosted on most nights by George Noory. According to estimates by Talkers Magazine, Coast to Coast AM has a cumulative weekly audience of around 2.75 million unique listeners listening for at least five minutes, making it the most listened-to program in its time slot.[2] Today, the program is heard on more than 600 stations in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Guam.[3]

After the theme song is played (Giorgio Moroder's "Chase" from Midnight Express), the broadcast is typically kicked off with a reading of current events or news stories by the host, usually with at least one bizarre or peculiar story. This is frequently followed by a guest interview for the rest of the first hour (with open phone lines if there is enough time), then a lengthier three-hour interview with a second guest. For the last hour of the show, people may call in to ask questions of the second guest. Every so often, host George Noory will flip the show's format and have the longer-interview guest on first to fill the first three hours of the show. In this format, the primary interview begins after the reading of the news and then the first break. The last hour in this "flipped" format will sometimes feature a guest with a shorter subject or, more often than not, be simply an hour of open lines. Occasionally, round table discussions are held on one of the show's common topics. Conventional topics are sometimes discussed, with interviews with notable authors and political talk sometimes featured.

On rare occasions, hosts have cut interviews short when it became clear that guests were being dishonest, unethical, unintelligible, abusive, or patronizing. When this happens, the rest of the show will be filled with a stand-in guest of Noory's choosing. Guests that have interviews cut short due to bad phone connections for example, or, at the last minute, becoming unavailable, are generally rescheduled for a later date.

In 2008, Noory volunteered an elaboration of the show's policy respecting the controversial opinions of regular guests. He explained that, provided there was no element of hostility toward third parties, it was program policy to allow expression of opinion unchallenged. He gave as an example Richard C. Hoagland's contention that features on Mars are artificial, constructed by a civilization that once inhabited the planet. Noory does not challenge these statements and agrees with whomever is making the statements. During hours of "open lines", calls are taken and put on air. Art Bell created multiple call-in numbers for:

Once VoIP services became widespread, Noory added a sixth line for Skype callers, which is only active when he hosts.

These lines were all announced at the beginning of each broadcast by Ross Mitchell for nearly all the show's history until the spring of 2012, when Mitchell's home station, KKOH in Reno, Nevada, chose not to be a Coast to Coast affiliate any longer. Two new announcers, Charles Tomas and Dick Ervasti, are the current voiceover announcers of the program.[4] Since 2007, Coast to Coast AM rolls out more numbers on special occasions, including lines that are reserved for special "themed" callers, for example those who claim to be from other dimensions, time periods, and those possessed by spirits.

The Halloween edition of Coast to Coast AM becomes Ghost to Ghost AM, as listeners call in with their ghost stories. The New Year's Eve show usually entails listeners calling in their predictions for the coming year, and the host rating the predictions made a year earlier. In recent years, the host of the New Year's Eve prediction show has been cautioning the open line callers that they may not predict the assassination of any person or the death of the US president.

The 2006first-person shooterPrey featured Art Bell as a guest star and featured him as himself in mock episodes of the show with guests calling in to discuss the various extraterrestrial or mythical phenomena making up the game's story line, sometimes to advance the plot and other times simply for humour. Additionally, an internet video featuring Bell was shown in the 2007 Lindsay Lohan film I Know Who Killed Me, whose plot centered on the phenomenon of stigmatic twins.

The show's Coast Insider service offers live Internet feeds of the show by subscription. The program is also broadcast on Sirius XM Radio in the United States, on Channel 146 - Road Dog Trucking, since November 12, 2013.

The show's complete schedule can be found on its website. Because the show is so frequently repeated, audible cue signals ("stingers") are inserted at the beginning and end of commercial breaks, to facilitate substitution of commercials by local stations.

George Noory hosts the show on weeknights and on the first Sunday of every month. Las Vegas-based investigative journalist George Knapp hosts the third and fourth Sunday of each month, and when there is a fifth Sunday, George Noory or another fill-in will host. Since the controversial firing of host John B. Wells, most Saturday episodes, as well as Sunday episodes not hosted by Knapp, have been hosted by Dave Schrader or Canadian political conspiracy talk show host Richard Syrett. Syrett and Schrader also work Fridays when Noory travels to Denver to record his video show Beyond Belief.

Mike Siegel hosted the show from April 2000 until February 2001. He became a frequent substitute for the show's original host, Art Bell in late 1999, and when Bell announced his retirement in early 2000, he recommended Siegel to succeed him.[5] Siegel maintained the format of the show that Bell had created, but his personal style was very different, and the show became less popular. Siegel hosted the show from Seattle, Washington, where he lived. Early in 2001, Bell decided to return, and Siegel left the show.

In January 2012, John B. Wells replaced Punnett as host of the Saturday evening and the second Sunday evening programs. He was fired in January 2014 because the show's producers wanted to go in a "different direction on Saturday nights", and is now the host of his own subscriber based program, Caravan to Midnight.[6] On the February 4, 2014 episode of that program, Wells stated that he thought he had been fired from Coast to Coast because he hated Barack Obama to the point where he can't bear the sight or sound of him, going even further to state that he avoids "even speaking his (Obama's) name," and that he thought Obama is a communist.

Richard C. Hoagland, former museum curator who was a major figure in the show's history, discussing issues relating to NASA's activities, space anomalies and alleged extraterrestrial architecture (the Face on Mars and vast glass domes on the Moon). His current status as a recurring guest on Coast to Coast AM is questionable.[15]

Louis Turi was born and raised in Provence, France.[18] Following four UFO experiences he was influenced to re-kindle Nostradamus' methods of Divine Astrology and spent many years reviving the Seer's cabalistic healing method.

Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics who discusses his research with implants, artificial intelligence and robotics – especially cyborgs.

This section is missing information about David John Oates, which was removed when Noory rescinded his ban. The edit summaries reflected an attitude that this article is a fan site or news site for the program rather than an encyclopedia article. Please expand the section to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page.(February 2015)

Nancy Lieder is no longer booked, since several of her prophecies of doom have spectacularly failed.

The Amazing Kreskin was banned after misrepresenting a so-called mass "happening" as a UFO sighting.

The Ghost Buster Gals are no longer booked, since they appeared on Art Bell's Dark Matter. Foster and Laure Lee have stated that Coast to Coast AM producer Tommy Danheiser informed them that since they were on Dark Matter their services were no longer needed.

Dreamland was another Art Bell creation, nearly identical to Coast to Coast AM but less caller driven. Bell recorded Dreamland on Friday afternoons where the show streamed live over the Internet and listeners could call in towards the end of the show. The show then aired at various times on different stations during the weekend, but doing eight shows a week got to be too much and he handed over control of the show to Whitley Strieber. Many affiliates aired the show before Coast to Coast AM on Sunday nights, but Premiere Radio pre-empted that time spot after it began to syndicate Matt Drudge, and then dropped the program entirely. It is now heard over the Internet, exclusively at UnknownCountry.com.

Dreamland continues to focus on many of the same topics as its sister program, although often with a more spiritual point of view, as well as an increased emphasis on extra-terrestrials.

Upon Art Bell's January 2006 return, Ian Punnett hosted Coast To Coast Live on Saturdays from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Eastern Time. A spin-off of the original Coast to Coast AM, the show covered similar topics as its flagship program. With Bell's July 2007 retirement, Coast to Coast Live was discontinued, with Punnett returning to host the regular Saturday edition.

The radio show published a monthly newsletter for subscribers called After Dark. Discussing matters covered on the show, it contained fourteen inner pages, approximately 46% of which were illustrations and photos, rather than text. The front cover contained artwork, and the back cover showed a list of recent shows. The newsletter ceased publication in January 2011, but the show now offers a free daily e-newsletter called CoastZone.

Art Bell stated that the decision to come out of retirement was entirely his, a response to the direction that George Noory has taken the show—closer to political talk radio rather than the open-minded exploration of the supernatural that defined Bell's tenure as host. Noory, Bell says, has "ruined" the franchise of Coast to Coast AM.[21]

The program's ratings under Noory have fallen to only 3.25 million listeners per week. Coast to Coast AM previously boasted a weekly listening audience in excess of 10 million listeners under Art Bell.[22][23] Since 2013 the listener numbers have shrunk an additional half million to a mere 2.75 million.[24] Listener numbers in 2014 have continued to decline to 2.5 million.[24]